amongst the native Egyptians. Hence we may infer that they were foreigners; and it is probable, that while the Israelites resided in Egypt, they were chosen from their body. They were burnt alive upon an high altar, and thus sacrificed for the good of the people. At the close of the sacrifice the priests gathered together the ashes of these victims, and scattered them upwards in the air; I presume with this view, that where any atom of this dust was wafted, a blessing might be entailed. The like was done by Moses with the ashes of the fiery furnace, but with a different intention; they were scattered abroad, that where any the smallest portion alighted, it might prove a plague and a curse to this ungrateful, cruel, and infatuated people. Thus there was a designed contrast in these workings of providence, an apparent opposition to the superstition of the times."

BRYANT on the Plagues of Egypt, p. 116.

No. 39. xiv. 29. The waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left.] Diodorus Siculus relates, that the Ichthyophagi, who lived near the Red Sea, had a tradition handed down to them through a long line of ancestors, that the whole bay was once laid bare to the very bottom, the waters retiring to the opposite shore, and that they afterwards returned to their accustomed channel with a most tremendous revulsion. (Bib. Hist. lib. iii. p. 174.) Even to this day the inhabitants of the neighbourhood of Corondel preserve the remembrance of a mighty army having been once drowned in the bay, which Ptolemy calls Clysma. (SHAW's Travels, p. 349.) The very country where the event is said to have hap pened, in some degree bears testimony to the accuracy of the mosaical narrative. The scriptural Etham is still called Etti; the wilderness of Shur, the mountain of Sinai, and the country of Paran, are still known by the same names. (NIEBUHR's Travels, vol. i. p. 189, 191.)

Marah, Elath, and Midian are still familiar to the ears of the Arabs. The grove of Elim yet remains, and its twelve fountains have neither increased nor diminished in number since the days of Moses.

BRYANT on the Plagues of Egypt, p. 404, 410.

No. 40.-xv. 20. And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.] Lady M. W. Montague, speaking of the eastern dances, says, "Their manner is certainly the same that Diana is sung to have danced on the banks of Eurotas. The great lady still leads the dance, and is followed by a troop of young girls, who imitate her steps, and, if she sings, make up the chorus. The tunes are extremely gay and lively, yet with something in them wonderfully soft. Their steps are varied according to the pleasure of her that leads the dance, but always in exact time, and infinitely more agreeable than any of our dances." (Letters, vol. ii. p. 45.) This gives us a different apprehension of the meaning of these words than we should otherwise form. Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her, with timbrels and dances. She led the dance, and they imitated her steps, which were not conducted by a set well known form, but extemporaneous. Probably David did not dance alone before the Lord, when the ark was removed, but led the dance in the same authoritative kind of way. (2 Sam. vi. 14. Judges xi. 34. 1 Sam. xviii. 6.)

HARNER, vol. ii. p. 114.

No. 41. xvii. 1. Rephidim.] "After we had descended, with no small difficulty, the western side of Mount Sinai, we come into the other plain that is formed by it, which is Rephidim. Here we still see that extra

ordinary antiquity, the rock of Meribah, which hath continued down to this day, without the least injury from time or accident. It is a block of granite marble, about six yards square, laying tottering as it were, and loose in the middle of the valley, and seems to have formerly belonged to Mount Sinai, which hangs in a variety of precipices all over this plain. The waters which gushed out, and the stream which flowed, (Psalm lxxviii. 20.) have hollowed, across one corner of this rock, a channel about two inches deep and twenty wide, appearing to be incrustated all over, like the inside of a tea kettle that hath been long in use. Besides several massy productions that are still preserved by the dew, we see all over this channel a great number.of holes, some of them four or five inches deep, and one or two in diameter, the lively and demonstrative tokens of their having been formerly so many fountains. It likewise may be further observed, that art or chance could by no means be concerned in the contrivance, for every circumstance points out to us a miracle, and, in the same manner with the rent in the rock of Mount Calvary, at Jerusalem, never fails to produce a religious surprise in all who see it."

SHAW's Travels, p. 352, 353.

No. 42.-xix. 13. He shall surely be stoned.] "To be stoned to death was a most grievous and terrible infliction. When the offender came within four cubits of the place of execution, he was stript naked, only leaving a covering before, and his hands being bound, he was led up to the fatal place, which was an eminence twice a man's height. The first executioners of the sentence were the witnesses, who generally pulled off their clothes for the purpose: one of them threw him down with great violence upon his loins; if he rolled upon his breast, he was turned upon his loins again, and

if he died by the fall there was an end; but if not, the other witness took a great stone, and dashed upon his breast, as he lay upon his back; and then, if he was not dispatched, all the people that him till he died."

stood by threw stones at

LEWIS's Origines Hebrææ, vol. i. p. 74.

No. 43.-xxii. 5. If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten.] Chandler observed, (Travels in Asia Minor, p. 142.) that the tame cattle were very fond of vine leaves, and were permitted to eat them in the autumn. "We remarked," he says, "about Smyrna, the leaves were decayed, or stripped by the camels and herds of goats, which are admitted to browze after the vintage." If those animals are so fond of vine leaves, it is no wonder that Moses, by an express law, forbad a man's causing another man's vineyard to be eaten by putting in his beast. The turning any of them in before the fruit was gathered, must have occasioned much mischief; and even after it must have been an injury, as it would have been eating up another's feed.

HARMER, vol. iv. p. 130.

No. 44.-xxii. 6. If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith, he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.] It is a common management in the East, to set the dry herbage on fire before the autumnal rains, which fires, for want of care, often do great damage. Moses has taken notice of fires of this kind, and by an express law has provided, that reparation shall be made for the damage done by those who either maliciously or negligently occasioned it. Chandler, speaking of the neighbourhood of Smyrna, says, (p. 276.) “ In the latter end of July, clouds began to appear from the south; the air was repeatedly cooled by showers which had fallen

G

rain.

elsewhere, and it was easy to foretel the approaching This was the season for consuming the dry herbage and undergrowth on the mountains; and we often saw the fire blazing in the wind, and spreading a thick smoke along their sides." He also relates an incident to which he was an eye witness. Having been employed the latter end of August, in taking a plan at Troas, one day af- · ter dinner, says he, a Turk coming to us "emptied the ashes from his pipe, and a spark of fire fell uncbserved in the grass, which was long, parched by the sun, and inflammable like tinder. A brisk wind soon kindled ablaze, which withered in an instant the leaves of the bushes and trees in its way, seized the branches and roots, and devoured all before it with prodigious crackling and noise. We were much alarmed, as a general conflagration of the country seemed likely to ensue." After exerting themselves for an hour, they at length extinguished it. (p. 30.) It is an impropriety worth correcting in this passage, where the word stacks of corn is used rather than shocks, which is more conformable to custom, as the heaps of the East are only the disposing the corn into a proper form to be immediately trodden out.

HARMER, vol. iv. p. 145.

No. 45.-xxiii. 19. Thou shalt not seeth a kid in his mother's milk.] CUDWORTH (on the Lord's supper, p. 14.) gives a very curious account of the superstition, on account of which he conceives the seething of a kid in its dam's milk to have been prohibited. "It was a custom of the ancient heathens, when they had gathered in all their fruits, to take a kid, and boil it in the dam's milk, and then, in a magical way, to go about and besprinkle with it all their trees, and fields, and gardens, and orchards, thinking by this means they should make them fructify, and bring forth fruit again more abundantly the following year. Wherefore God forbad his